Today we take the Eagle Glacier trail because a preceding herd of boy scouts tramped down its surface snow.  I tried taking a less traveled fork where only the tracks of a single wolf broke the snowy crust. A sore knee drove me back into the scouts’ wake.

The trail takes us along the edge of a flood plain  forest. Last night’s snow dusting still clings to spruce and hemlock needles but a strengthening morning sun will soon end that.  The forest’s lights and darks mix in satisfaction with the slate grays of river water that undercut translucent ice.

There is peace here until the trail climbs a small rise and becomes a narrow icy path cut into the river bank. Aki prancers over this icy shelf just a five feet drop from the fast moving river but I do not. We turn around and head back to the car.

Back on the plain, I stop often to enjoy morning light reaching around spruce trunks to give beauty to bare devil’s club stalks. I can not stop my self from whistling the theme of Holst’s Jupiter while Aki tears circles through the underbrush. I feel like we are being naughty in church.